"The Goddess" (1934) was a powerful film in which Ruan played a young mother forced into prostitution to support her son's education. Her performance in "The Goddess" epitomized her eloquent and emotional personality.

As a result of Ruan's fame, the media was obsessed with her personal life, an obsession which eventually led to Ruan taking her own life at the tender age of 24.

Hu Die aka Butterfly Hu [File photo]

Butterfly Hu was another famous Shanghai actress renowned among other things for her lead role in China's first sound film, "Songstress Red Peony" (1931), in which she portrayed a kindhearted wife who endures her husband's mistreatment.

"Hu Die was known as the empress of movies," says Wan.

Her versatility showed in the number of different characters she played including maidservant, teacher, and farm girl.

What set Hu apart from many other actresses at that time was she was formally trained, having originally enrolled at the China Film School in 1924.

Like many popular actresses in Shanghai in that era, Hu was also the subject of media obsession, while at one point was forced into a relationship with secret service head, Dai Li.

Unlike Ruan, Hu was eventually able to overcome the slanders of the press and lead a normal life with her husband after Dai passed away.

While Li, Ruan and Hu mostly starred in melodramas, the most popular genre of their time, movies were not limited to depicting women in tragic love stories.

In fact, in the late 1930s movies emerged depicting women as villainous and dangerous.

These wuxia films were mostly based on martial arts novels with women performing martial arts and eventually became quite popular by the early 1940s.

There are many reasons as to why cinema was so big in Shanghai during the 1920s and 1930s, but there remains little doubt much of it had to do with starlets of the silver screen who captivated audiences with their dazzling beauty, talent and mystique.

(Shanghai Daily December 8, 2008)